The Geo-Body of Vietnam

In 1983, Benedict Anderson argued in his book Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism that nations are “imagined,” and that one of the ways they are imagined is through the mass media of print.

For instance, before there were newspapers in which people could read about events throughout their country, it was difficult for them to conceive of all of the people in a given area as being the same. People identified with their locality more than with any larger entity.

Inspired by this argument, in 1994 Thongchai Winichakul published his book Siam Mapped: A History of a Geo-Body of a Nation in which he noted the importance of modern maps in creating a national consciousness.

Simply put, Thongchai’s argument is that without modern maps in which people can literally see their nation on a piece of paper, it is difficult for them to imagine it…